


Perhaps in Another World

by Raaj



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, old theories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-04-25 11:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14377257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaj/pseuds/Raaj
Summary: Since this is "Archive" of Our Own, I decided I wanted to compile some old speculative b2nd fic from tumblr before I lost track of it forever.  Because it's old speculative fic, it obviously will not be canon compliant!  Especially villain!Tiz lol and things like Janne or Nicolai being in the party.  Just ideas I really loved (and still want to play with sometimes).





	1. Chapter 1

He’d gained his strength back since waking up from the stasis chamber, but Agnès was still so easily able to push him back against the wall.  It might have been that his muscles were still a little mushy compared to hers.  Or it might have simply been that he’d never had much of a will to resist Agnès.  It wasn’t like she would ever hurt him; insistent as her push was, it was also gentle.  Gentler than the frown she directed at him now, and he couldn’t help smiling despite himself.  She was still very gentle indeed if this was her idea of a show of force.

She frowned even more at his reaction.  “I am happy you are back, Tiz, truly, but this does not mean all is well between us.  That you hid the truth from us is unacceptable.  We are your friends.  If we were truly unable to help, we could have at least comforted you.”

The small quiver in her voice was sobering, and he dipped his head, considering his response.  She deserved a good one.  "Honestly… I thought it was more comforting to know you didn’t have to worry about me.“  How could he have told them?  If they’d had worry hanging over their heads for that six months, distracting them from their own lives–that was what he would consider unacceptable.  Six months was so much precious time.

Agnès’ fingers tightened slightly on his arms as she leaned closer to him; he straightened, not quite sure what she meant to do.  "So you still think that was correct?  Would you make me lose you without warning once more?”

…He couldn’t say he wouldn’t, if the situation arose again.  "I’m so–“  Right as he began, though, he realized what Agnès had been thinking, because she acted upon it that instant.  Their noses bumped awkwardly in her haste and his confusion, but he caught on and angled his head as she pressed forward and then they were kissing.  It wasn’t for very long–it was a little odd to realize they were both in their twenties and complete novices at kissing–but all the same, Tiz could feel blood rushing to his cheeks and even his ears when Agnès pulled away.  "Agnès…?”

She wasn’t looking at him anymore, her own face furiously red as she released him.  "You’ve never seemed to quite understand how important you are to us.  I need you to reconsider.  Don’t…don’t do this to me again, Tiz.“  He opened his mouth–to apologize again, to reassure her, say something to take that sad look away–but the moment he started, she shook her head.  "It won’t be sincere if you say it without thinking.  Take your time.  …You know where to find me.”

At the side of the crystal.  Agnès met Tiz’s eyes one last time for a brief second, before her embarrassment overwhelmed her and she cast her eyes back down at the marble floor.

“I am happy to see you well again,” she repeated, and swept out of the hall to rejoin her acolytes.


	2. and here comes the villain!tiz

“Ah…was that supposed to be  _south_ west…?”  
  
“L-lady Agnès, your holiness!” Yew cried, the distress on his face obvious enough through the small facet of the crystal that showed him. “Please take more care with your directions! We’ve already gotten lost twice this week!”  
  
“…I truly am trying, Yew,” Agnès answered, her hands tightening against her chest in anxiousness. “Please, believe me!”  
  
There was the soft padding of footsteps at the doorway, and Agnès glanced up and away from her precious pendant. Her shoulders stiffened: there stood her captor, smiling in amusement. He mouthed a word at her.  
  
“Of course I believe you, Lady Agnès,” Yew said. “We’re… simply anxious to rescue you as soon as possible… Lady Agnès, what’s wrong? Is everything all right?”  
  
He’d noticed her distraction. “I’m fine!” she said. “But I must go–I must–he’s–” Her tongue was tying itself in knots as she tried to make an excuse. She needed to make Yew go, now!  
  
“I understand, milady,” Yew said quickly, though she knew he didn’t really understand at all. “You mustn’t let yourself get caught.” And he terminated the connection himself, leaving only silence between Agnès and the grinning man.  
  
Tiz laughed lightly as he stepped further into the room, but he did not approach Agnès directly, instead keeping a few feet’s distance. She didn’t relax. “Poor boy. He truly does trust you, Agnès. Don’t you owe it to him to be honest? At least tell him you don’t wish to be rescued.”  
  
“He would hardly believe me,” Agnès said. Very likely it would only distress Yew if she said such a thing–the Pope, abandoning her duties? If he didn’t think she’d lost her mind, he might think she was being forced to say it, and lose the little reassurance he had about her well-being. She shook her head as she gathered up the chain of her pendant and clasped it between her hands for comfort. “And I do intend to return to my post in time. With you by my side, mended and whole once more.”  
  
The smile on her friend’s face diminished a fraction; then he sighed. “Lady Agnès, how long do you intend to deny the truth?”  
  
“As long as it takes for you to come back to your senses!” she shouted, losing any semblance of calm. “Tiz, please!”  
  
“Tiz Arrior died when Norende collapsed.” Where his voice had followed its normal inflection before, it now fell flat, wholly unmoved by her plea. “His body and mind were revived only as tools. A tool for Airy, a tool for the Celestial. We simply discarded the illusion that he was anything else.” His expression was entirely still for a good minute, the silence broken only by the grandfather clock in the chamber, and then it effortlessly melted into a sheepish smile like one Tiz might have made. “But you do seem quite attached to lies now, Agnès! Pretending you’re just too hopeless to even give Yew an idea where you are was pretty clever. Even if it’s only delaying the inevitable. Whenever you are ready to lead your champions here, feel free. I’ll take care of them.”  
  
She turned away from him sharply, taking a steadying breath. He–no, the thing possessing Tiz–had already told her once just what it intended to do to the loyal Musketeers and Magnolia. She couldn’t bear the thought. “You aren’t that sort of person.”  
  
“Hmm…you sound sure, but you’ve been awfully reluctant to test that.”  
  
Because if she allowed a confrontation to happen, it would be all too easy for someone to die. Tiz might kill one of her guardians, an innocent person, before he regained control of himself–and she did not know if he ever would, if that happened–or, despite how certain he seemed of his strength, her rescuers might overpower him before she had the chance to say anything on his behalf. No. She could not allow either outcome. She already knew he would not harm her. If she had to mislead Yew to buy herself time, to try to figure out how to fix what was so dreadfully wrong with Tiz before it came to violence, she was willing to lie to the boy for as long as she could.  
  
…He truly was so very trusting…  
  
“Ah, yes,” Tiz said calmly. “You are running out of time. The preparations should be complete next week.”  
  
Preparations? He’d spoken of such things before, but only vaguely. And this was the first he’d said anything of her time running short. Her eyes darted to him with a new wariness. “And then what will you do with me?”  
  
“No harm,” he reassured her. “You will never come to harm in our care, Agnès. After all,” he said, and smiled gently, calming her a tiny bit even as she knew he was toying with her feelings– “…You are our hope.”


	3. Catmaster Edea and alley cat Ringabel

“What a curious outfit that is you’re wearing,” Ringabel said, and Edea flushed as he gave her a once-over. “Curious, but cute.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please… it’s hardly anything special. This is the uniform of a Cat Master.” But the knight was grateful to be wearing it–otherwise she might have been wearing her personal favorite garment, a little blue dress dyed and fashioned to resemble a certain vagabond’s shirt. It had suited her eyes. He’d had fairly good fashion sense, for all the other nonsense in his head. She’d missed him.

She absolutely did not want to know how obnoxious he might have been or the many erroneous conclusions he might have lept to had they reunited while she was wearing that. She was already deliberating on if it needed hiding.

Ringabel certainly didn’t need fuel to add to his fire. “Ah, yes, the Cat Master! Surely, then, you can always bring along one more stray?”

“I’m assuming you mean yourself?”

“I am rather like a cat with my nine lives. And you, dearest Edea, have always been my Mistress,” and he was practically  _purring_. It would have been embarrassing, if she hadn’t learned long ago that her sense of shame needed to sometimes be put on hold while dealing with Ringabel, since his certainly wasn’t in play.

“…Oi,” Janne was muttering, somewhere behind her. “Was that supposed to be a pickup line?”

“Perhaps he’s addled?”

Edea had to fight not to laugh as Ringabel’s face fell at Yew's sincere worry. “If he is, he’s been that way for a very long time,” she told the boy, just so he would know to not be concerned.

Ringabel coughed. “I-if I’m a bit rusty, it’s only because I’ve had to be away so long–”

“–Which was entirely your choice!” Edea reminded him sharply. She wasn’t going to let him forget that anytime soon.

“Admittedly, yes, but Edea–dearest Edea, you needn’t be angry at me! Allow me to come along? I’d hardly know what to do if–”

Ah, Edea thought as his babbling started to wash over her. He really was like a cat. Ready to wander off and do his own thing, but clingy and crying the second he thought he might have been forgotten. Of course she was going to let him come along, but it might do to establish some boundary before letting him think he could just waltz right back in and drape himself all over her, as some cats did.

Perhaps she’d invest in a big spray bottle.


	4. Edea tackles the bedhead

Yew watched with concern as Edea guided Tiz to have a seat on the log. Rescuing the man and meeting another of Luxendarc’s heroes had not gone remotely as expected. Rather than breaking into a prison cell, Magnolia had darted into a laboratory to release Tiz from a stasis chamber, where he had to all accounts been asleep for the past three years. He still appeared to be half-asleep–while he’d been able to follow them out of the base, his drowsy expression had barely changed in all that time, all his motions performed as if he was not rediscovering freedom, but meandering through a dream.  
  
Magnolia and Edea both seemed better prepared to deal with this unexpected decline in the warrior of light than Yew felt he was. Magnolia was handling Tiz’s lack of response by holding complete conversations by herself, joking and teasing with him and taking any little twitches as though they were questions and reactions. She seemed to be taking the man’s odd state amazingly in stride, which. Actually made Yew feel a tiny bit suspicious, especially after he’d caught a rare worried look on Magnolia’s face. She had tried to hide painful truths behind a carefree attitude before… but Yew didn’t see how she  _could_ have known anything this time.  
  
Edea was dealing with the circumstances by aggressively mothering Tiz. She’d gotten him dried once he was out of the stasis chamber, dressed him in a spare uniform they’d found, and stayed close by his side as they made their way back out of the facility. She seemed to think physical contact would pull the man out of his oddly disconnected state. Once he was sat down, she wrapped her arms around him from behind and hugged him again. She’d done so half a dozen times already. Yew felt awful for her, having to see her friend in such a way, but Edea was resolute in her affection: she squeezed the man until he made a little grunt that was probably more discomfort than acknowledgment, and then looked at him critically. “Well, safe to say you’ve seen better days, Tiz. Just look at your hair! It’s taken on a life of its own. Must be what those scientists were studying.”  
  
“Good gracious, Edea, you’ll hurt his feelings,” Magnolia said with a laugh.  
  
“He can take it,” Edea said firmly. “The question is… can he take the brush.”  
  
She said it so solemnly that Yew thought for a split-second that she was talking about some special instrument, but the brush she rummaged out of her bag was her own, perfectly ordinary, hairbrush. Her spare, actually.  
  
Probably for the best, considering she seemed ready to use it on the chaotic dragon’s nest that was Tiz’s hair.  
  
“I know you’re not going to like this, Tiz,” Edea announced. “But you really, seriously need it. You have been sleeping on wet hair for three years, and it. shows.” With a brief deliberation, she chose a prime spot to begin the work she’d set for herself, and lowered the brush into the mousy-brown hair.  
  
Yew and Magnolia watched, but the brush didn’t seem to move an inch. “Um, Edea…?” Yew began, only to be cut off by Magnolia laughing.  
  
Edea was swearing very creatively. “–Tangles like mythril,  _now_  I know why Ringabel gave up so quickly on ever styling this mess–” She put more force into the brush, and it finally moved. But Yew winced at the sound of it pulling through the tangled hairs, and a whine burst out of the listless body under Edea’s hands, Tiz reaching up to grab at the thing hurting him. The musketeer was actually a little concerned by the reaction–Tiz had shown himself capable of lashing out on pure reaction during their escape–but Edea simply pulled the hairbrush out of his reach and declared, “Tiz, you will take this brushing like the nice boy you are. It’s for your own good.”  
  
…Yew was fairly certain that the fact Tiz’s hands went back down was because the man could still recognize his friend’s voice in some fashion, rather than because he appreciated how he was being talked to. At any rate, he submitted to the brushing, rough as it was, sitting as Edea yanked his head this way and that with her strong strokes. Whenever his hands started to reach up again, she ordered him to sit still, which amazingly worked every time. Perhaps he was aware it was his friend standing over him… Yew could only imagine their many months traveling together had made him closely acquainted with her potential for bossiness.  
  
Even speculating on this, Yew still startled when, halfway through his whirlwind hair, Edea making mutters of mrgrgr as she tried to pull through a particularly tough knot, the man actually spoke. “…Edea… _why_?” It was as plaintive a plea as a very hoarse voice could make.  
  
Yew caught the way the woman’s eyes lit up, but she phrased her answer as though she’d expected an objection all along. “Be glad I’m not shearing it off! With how impossible these knots are, I almost think it’s necessary–”  
  
Both she and Tiz grunted at that moment, as she tried once more to pull through the knot. The brush did not grunt: it groaned, and then snapped clean in half, the bristles still entangled in Tiz’s hair as Edea stared at the wood handle remaining in her hand.  
  
“So the hair of Luxendarc’s hero has a remarkable strength of its own,” Magnolia cracked.  
  
“That does it, we’re shaving it off,” Edea decided.  
  
It took Tiz a moment, his expression briefly twisting like he was still having trouble getting words to his mouth, but he said it very clearly: “No. I like it this way.”  
  
“Tiz, you don’t even know what it looks like.”  
  
“I know I have hair.”  
  
“…I suppose for now you can keep the tornado look, since you’re making coherent arguments and all,” Edea conceded. And squeezed him into one more hug, one which was this time endured withut any grunts. “So! Now that you’re all the way awake–er, let me get the brush out of your hair first. But then there are so many things I want to talk to you about.”


	5. Mother Dearest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> before B2nd's release, an anon on tumblr prompted me with the idea of Magnolia being Ringabel's mother.

 "Bonjour, sweetheart!”

It’s odd how time seems to slow down, those words hanging in the air after the striking young beauty Tiz is accompanying notices Ringabel and winks at him, with that line.  That very familiar line, which he must have heard dozens, if not hundreds of times—but not while flirting.  No.  That would make it too ordinary.  He would know exactly how to respond.  Like this, his voice creaks when he asks, startled into confusion: “Mother?” _  
_

Because.  That voice, that intonation…that long, lustrous white hair, and the flower carefully pinned onto one side…the rare red eyes…

“Um, Ringabel?” Tiz says with a sheepish laugh, trying to dispel the sudden awkwardness.  "I think she’s a bit young to be anyone’s mother—"

But the woman cuts his friend off with a small tsk, shaking her head.  ”It’s like I’ve said, Tiz: it’s a rare blessing when our  _times_  can match up.”

…The way his mother had seemed radiantly beautiful to himself as a child in both body and spirit, even as she’d left him for days, sometimes weeks on end, until she didn’t return at all and he starved for food and a sense of worth.

“Mother,” he says, more certainly, while still wondering how this could be—but he’s seen the impossible happen before.  There’s no point in denying it, he merely has to make sense of it.  Then it occurs to him.   _Bravely Second,_ the halt of time; if she already had free use of it, and perhaps had more knowledge of its machinations than they—  ”You’re a time traveller?”

She smiles; whether indulgently or condescendingly he doesn’t know.  Perhaps she’s trying to be kind, but he associates that smile with too many empty comforts before the disappearances.  ”You always were a bright boy, Alternis.”

“Ringabel.”

They both make the correction, but Tiz actually says it a half-second quicker, and Ringabel finally looks away from this woman ( _his mother_ ) to look at his friend.  Tiz leans forward on the table, his hands tense in what Ringabel recognizes as defensiveness.  Protectiveness.

Tiz knows his childhood wasn’t a happy one, and the look he gives Magnolia is a clear warning.  ”I told you before, his name is Ringabel.”


	6. One too many times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was written when the JPN version of the game was out, but it's more "speculative" in that it's a question of if the player had missed the prompt to use Bravely Second, causing the characters to keep reliving the loop. ...It's not a happy result. Suicide tw.

“Agnès?  What…are you doing?”

Tiz could see his dear friend through the pendant, but only poorly; not only was it nighttime, but she wasn’t holding her broken pendant as she often would to receive one of their calls.  Instead it lay discarded on the floor, only showing the profile of her kneeling form in its distorted periphery.

She was holding one of the swords from the suits of armor that decorated the room she was being held captive in.  She seemed as though she was studying it carefully.  However, being a decoration only, its blade was undoubtedly dull.  Emperor Oblivion wouldn’t have given her any real weapons, Tiz was certain of that much.

“Agnès?  We’re going to come rescue you,” he said, casting his voice just a little louder.  Maybe she hadn’t answered him because she hadn’t heard his voice.  It wasn’t often that she took her pendant off.  Could she hear him like this?  "This time, we’ll succeed for sure.  Now that the Celestial has given us a second chance.  You don’t need to do anything rash.“  He could understand desperation.  For Agnès, this was the second time she had been kidnapped.  Though everyone’s memories of the first time before the reset were hazy, those lingering memories of her first imprisonment had to be making her current situation even more miserable.  She was probably considering every possible avenue of escape, no matter how unlikely or risky–

“I will not put you all through this a second time.”

Her voice was so quiet, distant as the pendant was from her, that it took Tiz a second to make out what she had said.  Once it registered, he shook his head.  "You’re not at fault for any of this!  It’s the emperor who’s to blame.  Don’t be reckless, Agnès.  He defeated you, Braev, Alternis and Yew all at once.  How do you expect to escape on your own with a display sword?“  Especially considering she was being held captive in an airborne vessel; the "Rescue Agnès Squad”, as Yew liked to call them, needed to get their own airship again as soon as possible.

Agnès wasn’t answering him again, and an uneasy feeling grew in Tiz’s gut as he realized that perhaps she had been able to hear him all along… so why was she having such trouble answering him?  She must be upset, and that was no state of mind to try and plan an escape in.  What was she doing with the sword?  "Agnès.  Can’t you–can you put that down and talk to me?“

"I have no words for you,” she said, her voice tinny through the crystal but still thick with tears, he could hear it now.  "I did not think you would call now.  Please put the crystal away.“

"Tell me what you’re doing with the sword.”  There was no immediate answer, and Tiz felt his insides twist.  "Agnès!“

"Of course, I considered many ways to escape on my own the first time as well,” she said finally.  "I do not remember all the exact details; it’s still like a dream.  Perhaps I even tried some of them.  I don’t know.  But every time I think I am halfway to an idea, I instantly remember why it would not work.  I cannot escape on my own.  I knew it from the instant I was captured, and trying to defy that knowledge only ends up confirming it more.“

"That’s why you wait and let  _us_  rescue you,” Tiz said, swallowing to try and keep his uneasiness down.  If she wasn’t even considering escape, then–  "We know his goal this time!  We’re going to stop him and that despicable fairy, and you’ll be all right, everything will work out!  Just believe in us!“

From behind him, Tiz could hear Magnolia stirring and calling his name in a groggy voice.  He must have woken her.  He’d apologize later, but right now Agnès was paramount.

”…He’s aware that you know, too,“ Agnès said.  "You already know he’s changed his plans to stay ahead.  Already he’s used me at the water and fire crystal.”

Two of the four crystals.  Once all four were agitated, the same end as the last time would likely result: the moon decimated, and Luxendarc brought to a standstill and swarmed by Ba'al.  But it wasn’t going to get to that point, and it wasn’t her fault that it had the first time.  "That isn’t your fault.“

"Is it not?” she sobbed; the little composure she had was breaking now.  "As a vestal, I am responsible for the welfare of the crystals, which makes it only more unacceptable that I am the means for them being used to…“  She didn’t finish, sobbing and clutching the sword more tightly.  "I am always the means for ruin…”

“What sort of talk is this?” Magnolia asked as she crawled out of her bedroll to peer at the crystal fragment with Tiz, her view nearly eclipsed in his desperate grip. “What’s going on?”

“… Severing the knot.”

“What?”

“Put down the sword, Agnès!”

“An old story from Ancheim’s history,” Agnès said, answering Magnolia’s confusion and ignoring Tiz’s growing panic.  "About how the most recent dynasty began.  There was an impossible knot to be untied, so the first king simply cut it…an allegory for an impossible situation having a very simple solution… you just have to get rid of the knot.“

"Don’t talk like that!”

Magnolia grabbed onto Tiz’s shaking hands, prizing his fingers apart so she could see Agnès’ face better, if only by a fraction.  "You’re not speaking very clearly, I’m afraid.  Please calm down and let’s talk about this?  I’ll get Tiz to calm down, too.  All right?“

"I’ll be calm when she puts that sword away,” he snapped.  "Please, put it DOWN.“

His friend, his love, paused.  And then, finally, after far too long, she rested the sword on the floor beside her.  She leaned over, and her hand covered the pendant as she grasped it.

Tiz and Magnolia both breathed, exchanging the briefest glances of relief.  It was too soon to rest easy yet; the repetition of events was obviously crushing Agnès’ hope, and they needed to revive it quickly.  Tiz retrained his eyes on the crystal fragment as Magnolia crawled the few feet to shake Yew and Edea awake.

…It was still dark, its other half held tightly in Agnès’ hand.  "What are you doing?”

“Forgive me.  I should have thought of this first.  …Please, forgive me!”

That was the only warning he had before the fragment burst into a dazzling display of pinpoints of light, the starry night spinning and whirling around its surface.  But there were parts that didn’t show stars: there was a vast darkness chasing the lights as they spun, and he caught a glimpse of the yellow light of candles, the illumination from a large open window that Agnès was standing outside of.

She’d thrown the crystal.  He was screaming even before he could fully make sense of it–she was throwing away her pendant, her treasured pendant, they needed that to communicate with her, why would she throw it unless–

she didn’t think she needed it any longer

she didn’t want them to see?

she was going to–

“AGNÈS!”

There was a splash, and then darkness again.  The darkness leeched from the crystal, spreading across Tiz’s view even as he felt Edea’s hands grab his shoulders and heard Yew’s plaintive voice asking…something.  The younger boy’s voice sounded muffled and far away, and after a few seconds Tiz didn’t even hear it anymore, just the ringing in his ears.  He couldn’t feel Edea’s normally firm grasp, either.

There was nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Just darkness.  Perhaps the Celestial was resetting the timeline again.  It felt more like he was losing his senses.  No, no; it had to be that the world was resetting.  This wasn’t how things were supposed to end either.  Surely the Celestial knew that, and would make it right.

It seemed like a few minutes had passed now.  He didn’t remember if this had happened the first time.  He didn’t know if it should take so long.  He clutched the pendant fragment again, swallowed against the tears that were already streaming down his face.  He’d just wait for it to restart.  Yes, he’d wait as long as it took.  A world like this, a world where he’d failed to give Agnès hope–he didn’t want anything to do with it.


End file.
